Event Details

Photography critic and curator Vince Aletti will discuss fashion magazines' troubled relationship with reality, and the ways in which, while providing a means of escape, their pages also act as sites of cultural flux, recording every minute shift in taste and style. Using examples of vintage and contemporary fashion editorials, Aletti will show how great photography and sensitive design work in concert, and why fashion photography needs to be seen in the context of the magazine.

Vince Aletti reviews photography exhibitions for The New Yorker magazine's "Goings On About Town" and photography books for Photograph. His work has also appeared inAperture, Art + Auction, and photoworks. Aletti was the art editor of the Village Voice from 1994 to 2005 and the paper’s photo critic for twenty years. In 2005, he won the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award for writing.

SVA MFA Design Criticism Lecture Series, Spring 2013

Tuesdays, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

SVA Design Criticism Department

136 West 21st Street, 2nd Floor

We're pleased to announce details of the SVA MFA Design Criticism Spring 2013 Lecture Series, our ninth series to date. On Tuesday evenings at D-Crit we present lectures by the most thoughtful and provocative writers, editors, designers, and curators practicing today in the interrelated fields of design, architecture and urban planning. Come for the lectures and stay for a chance to mingle with the speakers, D-Crit faculty members, and students.

The Spring series is specially curated and hosted by D-Crit first-year students and reflects their interests and obsessions, which include soft waterfront infrastructure, satire as a critical strategy, game design as a component of urban planning, fashion photography, and longform journalism, among other topics. Join us at D-Crit this semester for lectures by Narratively editor-in-chief Noah Rosenberg; inventor and product designer Markus Kayser; landscape architect Susannah Drake; IDEO’s education director Sandy Speicher; networked-device innovator Kati London; The New Yorker photography critic Vince Aletti; author and columnist Virginia Postrel; and WNYC's "Studio 360" host Kurt Andersen.

Each lecture is followed by a lively Q&A session and refreshments in the D-Crit Reading Room. Lectures are free and open to the public but you do need to register to reserve your space.

MFA Design Criticism, School of Visual Arts, http://dcrit.sva.edu

The SVA MFA in Design Criticism is a pioneering two-year graduate program that trains students to research, analyze, and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications. Students study with some of the best design writers and thinkers of our time, including MoMA’s senior curator of Architecture and Design Paola Antonelli, Design Observer blogger Alexandra Lange, and New York Times critic Phil Patton. They learn how to curate an exhibition, produce a radio segment, launch a blog, edit a publication, host a lecture series, and stage a major conference.

The School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City is an established leader and innovator in the education of artists. From its inception in 1947, the faculty has been comprised of professionals working in the arts and art-related fields. SVA provides an environment that nurtures creativity, inventiveness and experimentation, enabling students to develop a strong sense of identity and a clear direction of purpose.

On Tuesday evenings at D-Crit we present lectures by the most thoughtful and provocative writers, editors, designers, and curators practicing today in the interrelated fields of design, architecture and urban planning. Selected to supplement our curriculum with their original methods and alternative viewpoints, these speakers inspire and challenge our students. Our students, in turn, through the discussion they lead, help illuminate the concerns and priorities of design criticism today.